December 18th Update

So I haven't blogged since the semester kicked into gear. What a time, what a time.

Here is an experiment in how to summarize four months' worth of life-altering events in a single post. First thing: you condense time. Second: elements must recur for a secret narrative to tremble below the surface. Third: be honest and choose your details wisely.



September:
Still not sleeping more than a few hours a night.
A friend, a Ben, loans me a sleep-science book. I read the first 20 pages.
Aunt found dead in her house after 4 days of not talking to er friends, cause of death still unknown.
Step-Grandfather dies of dementia and cancer.
Really frustrated by what's coming out when I write. Nothing good happening in essays or poems.
Came out to a friend and faculty mentor, a Nicole. She gave me a list of queer writerly resources, and a few good ideas about how to write about my experiences in a meaningful way without slipping into cliched imagery or writing YATA.
First round of student essays: the worst batch I've ever read. We restart the class six weeks into the semester, and do it right.

October:
"Life is too short," says Ben who loaned me the sleep book, in reply to me talking about my hesitation to come completely out of the closet about my gender identity.
I think about my suddenly-dead aunt.
Came out to father during the call where I consoled him about his dead sister. Father obsesses over hypothetical penis-lopping-off, thinks I am gay and not trans, thought he was the expert on transsexual people because he watched TV shows about us, and wouldn't grant me authority over my own experience. Stubborn asshole.
Wrote an essay about my experience as a transsexual woman in a male body. The through-line is dreams I've had where I'm female, and conversations I have had with my parents. It is well-received in workshop, people grant me my experiences, throw no gender flak, say it's the first time they are seeing my voice on the page.
Bought a baby names book to figure out my female name.
Friends (Leah, Chase, Ben)  help me have a rebirthday on my half birthday. I'm en femme the whole evening, cook some healthy food, drink wine. My friends give me a makeover, teach me bathroom sink stuff, makeup things, haristyling. Later I put on a sexy outfit and strappy heels and head to a local bar. I get compliments on my eyes and my legs :)
Shaved my chest and legs and armpits for the rebirthday. Bad reaction on chest, lots of bumps, many different types, gigantic itch. Not wearing breast forms at the house anymore until I get my chest looked at.
Second cousin dies.
Sister tells me the story of how my mother put the dog to sleep last October. The story levels me. I did not cry last year when I heard the news. I cry during my sister's story, on my phone in a restaurant, lose my appetite, throw away the pizza I bought.
Teaching becomes no fun.
Physical and mental breakdown after second round of family deaths
Considered dropping out of program to go home and see my family, couldn't afford airfare, cancelled lots of class and took personal days instead.
Considered stopping being a writer since nothing good is happening on the page still.
Wrote a poem about my dead dog. Not great, but better than anything I'd cranked out all semester.
Financial aid yanked for next semester.
Began search for roommate.
Stopped going to therapist because I felt I was never being authentic to her, had to prove to her that I was trans instead her just accepting it, also insurance issues.
Threw a wine party at my house. Had stress headaches about the party. Took a Tylenol, forgot about it. Had a pretty good time at the party. Then I blacked out a few hours in.
I came to in my room, to an empty house except for two friends (Chase, Ben), and I'm crying to them uncontrollably about my dead dog from St. Louis.
Apparently, during my blackout, I threw books at my guests, and yelled about shit being awful. Eventually, Ben helped me puke a wine-dark sea, and I got to bed.
Married friends from college came to visit me in Flagstaff. We eat around Flag, go the Grand Canyon and take pictures, reconnect, argue about religion a lot, and remind each other that we miss each other. It is good to see old faces, especially faces doing well. Reminder: success is possible, even in marriage.

November:
Recovered from breakdown, getting mojo back, teaching becoming fun again.
Started finalizing applications to MFA and PhD programs.
Sent materials to rec-letter writers the week before thanksgiving, didn't have nearly as much time as I wanted to have for putting writing sample and statements of purpose together.
Upward swing interrupted near thanksgiving by worst depression experienced since moving to Flagstaff--fueled by money troubles and the idea that I would never be able to get out of debt enough to afford transition coupled with five more years of school and debt-taking-on in order to become accredited enough to teach, feeling overwhelmed with responsibilities between magazine and english organization and teaching and studying and figuring out how to live as a transsexual human being.
Super depression on t-giving. Dialogues with sharp objects, phone not answered all day. Friends eventually show up at house, talk me down (or up), take me out of my house, provide national suicide hotline phone number, give inspirational talks the next day that kinda work, kinda don't.
A few despondent days spent going through the motions, not sure how I'm going to pull myself out of this hole again.
A friend from St. Louis mails me a makeup set from bare Minerals, and I cried a lot when I read her letter. I still don't know why it's so easy to forget that I am loved. But she reminded me. Big time.
Decided to make big sweeping changes to way I live.
Cut up credit cards.
Attended Transcending Gender Awareness Week activities on camps, met some awesome people I want to hang around more next semester / over break.
Met a gorgeous trans woman, so beautiful I can hardly look at her.
Met a trans man who is super gung-ho about life.
Set up an appointment with the closest thing Flagstaff has to a gender therapist.
Went to a dermatologist to get my chest looked at, received prescriptions.
Turned in a bunch of poems about gender, about being a transsexual, about being suicidal, about insomnia, about all of those combined. My professor and classmates said they are the best things I have ever written :) though I hope I'll never have to suffer like that again in order to produce meaningful art. I hear transition is no party :S

December:
Opened an account on Rachel's Haven, tg support site.
Started wearing the rainbow pride wristband I got at the Transcending Gender Awareness Week activities around town, and even to class, no judgment experienced.
Started end-of-semester projects--a series of lyric essays in the style of Lia Purpura, a 30-page long poem series about gender and depression, and a revised essay about the toxic garbage island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Started grading student work again. Most As and Bs I have ever ended up with at the semester's end, in both classes.
Started playing video games again due to stress.
Found a roommate.
Had a breakdown at a party after not even that much booze. Admitted to friends that I thought I might be an alcoholic because I keep drinking though it doesn't do good things for me anymore (upon deeper investigation, I know I am not one because I never get the cravings unless already drunk, I rarely drink anyway, I have booze in my house I bought last April, etc), cried cried cried about being depressed and unsatisfied with the direction my life is going, yatta yatta.
Decided I am off the sauce for a long time. Whether I'm an an alchie or not, these days, booze brings badness and not goodness. Trying to avoid the Einsteinian definition of insanity: doing the same thing and expecting different results. Sober ever since, no issues.
Spent two caffeine-fueled weeks on final semester projects and terminal-degree applications.
Conference with poetry teacher made me completely second guess my work sample, in which I had put none of my gender poems.
My poetry professor said she'd been showing my "Transsexual Poem," a 1 and a half page series of prose poems about the feeling of having a body whose physical sex does not match up with my identified subconscious sex.
She said she had been using it as an example of putting your guts on the page via imagery.
She said the students had fucking loved it.
She said, based on my series, she thinks I have a chapbook brewing.
After a brief crisis about how far out I want to come and whether or not I should put gender stuff into my work sample, I decided again that life is too short, and that the work sample should reflect my best work regardless of my anxieties over who would be reading it--fuck the audience, essentially.
I loaded it up with gender poems. Now it's half gender-poems and half non-gender poems.
Decided I need to find ways to not think of my transsexuality as a problem anymore.
Finished series of lyric essays.
Finished series of poems.
Finished garbage island essay.
Met the December 15th deadline for 2 MFA and 1 PhD applications, paid $200 in app fees and GRE-score-sending fees.
Finished grading.
Picked up sleep book again.
Remembered I have a blog.

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That's a lot of life. What a difficult last four months. To all of my friends who helped me through them: thank you. You are the reason I am still alive and trying to improve the quality of my existence, why I have not given up on writing, why am still in the program and doing what I came here to do: write. A professor once said to never forget the people you are in the program with, because they are the reason you do this. It has never been more true. This is getting cliched. I am not so good at expressing gratitude succinctly. It is felt though. Though I hate it when I fall apart, I understand that I have to in order to figure out which parts of me I leave behind. Thanks for helping me rebuild myself, friends.

I think there is hope. I think there are good things yet to come--I think that is a symptom of hope.

I'd like to spend this break doing writerly things, like posting about cool poets and essayists I love. I also don't want to make any commitments for a month. A tarot reading told me to not try to force anything over this break, so I shan't try to force anything. I would like to write about writing some more though. Also to sleep for 12 hours a night. Realistic goals, if anything. So I will say this: we'll see what happens. More to come.

Here is the latest in the continuing female name experiment.

--Ylia